How could Xero improve the homepage?

The updated design has made the experience noticeably harder rather than easier.

The interface feels overwhelmingly busy, with so many competing elements that it’s difficult to quickly locate the tools and information I actually need. Instead of offering clarity, the new layout creates visual noise. It’s an overload of panels, prompts, and widgets that demand attention all at once. The result is a home page that feels cluttered and, frankly, quite jarring to use.

The previous layout wasn’t perfect, but it was functional — it let me get in, find what I needed, and get on with my work. The new design slows that down. It’s less intuitive, less efficient, and far more taxing on the senses.
I’d really encourage the team to revisit the balance between aesthetics and usability. A cleaner, more streamlined interface would go a long way toward restoring the clarity and focus that made Xero such a pleasure to use.

*70% of customers say the new Xero homepage makes it easier to stay on top of their business.*

Is it just me or was this the same % for customers who liked new invoicing?

It feels like the marketing team are pulling numbers out of thin air.

I would like to see the statistics of the range of people asked too:

- In which country are they located
- Their role within the business
owner, accountant, bookkeeper, manager, accounts AR/AP, admin etc
- Permission level in Xero - what tasks they are solely or jointly responsible for
- How many days a week to they use Xero
- How many hours a day they use Xero
- Have they previously participated in Xero feedback sessions
- Is their Xero file integrated with other programs
point of sale, CRM, inventory, marketing, payroll, AI, reporting etc
- What % of users, not subscribers, who use Xero at least once a week actively use the product ideas portal?

To name a few.....

I support those who say its not a good change. It would be bad enough from a design pov, but in recent days it has ceased to work for me at all. I'd happily change back to the old one only I see that I'll be forced to move to something (that isn't working) in two weeks. Don't tell me it's because I'm using Edge, no other product has this kind of limitation.

It depends what browser you're using. You need to be able to apply custom CSS to specific sites.

If you're using Firefox, it has inbuilt capabilities if you enable the option through the "dangerous" advanced settings. (Go to "about:config", and enable "toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets".) However there's also a "Custom CSS" plugin in the Firefox extensions store. Other browsers also have add-ons and approaches, so just Google search for "<browser> Custom CSS" - for example, the Edge add-on seems to be called "Custom Style Script".

Then you can apply our CSS fixes to Xero, the snippet below adds a border around each widget to make them more readable, and fixes the blue title bar to the top of the window.

@-moz-document domain(go.xero.com) {
/* Fix navigation bar */
#shell-nav { position: fixed !important; width: 100% !important; z-index: 1000 !important; }
#shell-app-root { margin-top: 64px !important; }

/* Widget border */
.dashboard-template-beta-widget--contents article { border: 1px solid #c0c0c0; }
}

We've also been playing around with some other options, I'll add these here for reference, but note that they're not ideal and slightly problematic, so use these at your peril. Realistically, these solutions need be fixed on Xero's side.

/* Fix columns to 3 columns regardless of screen size */
.dashboard-template-beta-grid { grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr) !important; }
.dashboard-template-beta-widget { width: auto !important; height: auto !important; }

/* Full height account watchlist */
.dashboard-template-beta-widget--contents { }
.accounts-watchlist-widget-AccountsWatchlistWidgetContent { height: auto !important; }

/* Account watchlist compact mode */
.accounts-watchlist-widget-readonlytablecell { font-size: 12px !important; padding: 4px 16px 4px 0 !important; }
.accounts-watchlist-widget-readonlytable > colgroup > col:nth-child(1) { width: 1% !important; }
.accounts-watchlist-widget-readonlytable > colgroup > col:nth-child(2) { width: auto !important; }
.accounts-watchlist-widget-readonlytable > colgroup > col:nth-child(3) { width: 1% !important; }
.accounts-watchlist-widget-readonlytable > colgroup > col:nth-child(4) { width: 1% !important; }

If I have time, I'll look to improve these other workarounds - the fix to 3 columns is somewhat redundant given it remembers saved layouts on each of the 2, 3 and 4 column views.

NB: Keep in mind these workarounds could stop working at any point if Xero changes the way the dashboard works/behaves, and modifies the identifiers of their layout.

@Andrew G - are those browser add-ons generally available? Would you have a link to them?

@Kelly Munro - "I’ll keep you updated on progress that’ll improve your use of the homepage here." It's been over two months, anything to update???

So I've played around with the new homepage quite a bit - firstly, it's not a "quick" transition - it records the widget positions for each screen size, so you need to set that up for every screen, every user, etc. This wasn't obvious (or it didn't work) at the beginning.

So a general feedback point here - the dashboard customisation is counter-intuitive compared to other SaaS products out there - this is compounded when there's so little help/information and/or user guide on how to migrate/adapt to the new homepage. Shame that our existing layouts on the old homepage didn't transfer over automatically without a lot of effort on our part.

Secondly there are a number of capabilities missing, which means we end up having different widget placement for each screen and we need to learn/remember which screen has which widgets where. This is not efficient, and potentially error prone (considering the invoices/bills widgets look identical on first glance, title aside).

The following outstanding issues still need to be resolved to aid usability:

1a. Being able to have columns of different lengths - i.e. place widgets in columns, and not in rows. When on wide 3- or 4-column layouts, I am restricted from placing more widgets in the first column and consequently end up with a layout with widgets in column 4 that make no sense.

and/or

1b. provide the ability for filler/spacing widgets to be added, if row-based position must be kept, allowing us to add filler widgets into the 3rd and 4th columns, ensuring that we have a consistent layout in column 1 even when that column naturally has more widgets than any other column combined.

General feedback point here - Xero seems to completely miss the point that as accountants we work in columns - assets, creditors, debtors, etc. - and that's how we'd like to view things on the dashboard. It's impossible to maintain this if you have a lot of bank account widgets.

There are also some usability/efficiency issues that exist, all of which need to be resolved:

2a. Being able to make the Chart of Accounts watchlist widget full height, so it displays ALL accounts being watched without the need to scroll the list within widget itself. This would need some "intelligence" so that it works alongside other widget sizes, and doesn't mess up our column-based positions. As it stands it's easy to miss accounts with balances (which should be zero) and are not immediately visible.

2b. Draft and Needing Approval Bills/Invoices are now indicated "below the fold" on all our screens due to the size of the widget; this is caused by these bits of critical information being moved below the graph, rather than staying above the graph as-in the previous version.

2c. Bank account balance graphs are missing and still need to be restored - we used this to better/easily/efficiently identity bank accounts needing attention, and that has now gone from the dashboard. It means it's yet another click (and less efficiency) compared to what we had before.

2d. A small usability improvement would be for us to set an outline or background shading for each widget according to our needs- specifically, given the stupid nature of the dashboard widget positioning, being able to have creditors in one colour, debtors in another, etc. would improve usability no end.

There's also some other niggles we've fixed ourselves by applying our own CSS: adding a border to the widgets to improve readability, and fixing the top (blue) menu bar so it's always visible on screen. But I'm less worried about these, now we have our own workaround using client-side browser add-ons.

Finally, we're getting increasingly concerned over the radio silence from Xero. No real migration strategy is communicated, a lot of spin/pr/marketing/sales guff on how wonderful this new homepage actually is (which generally shows a lack of understanding of their customer base), a migration window of a few months, and no published roadmap with real detail (yes there's the spin/pr/marketing/sales roadmap, but that doesn't give us dates and migration windows, etc.). Compared to other SaaS providers, it does give us reason to question whether Xero is a platform we want to remain using for the long term. (This is further compounded by comments, backed up by others I've spoken to, where I now know a lot of these issues have been highlighted in feedback sessions with Xero prior to general rollout.)

I do hope ALL of these remaining issues are addressed soon.

It doesn't matter how loud we are or if we are rude or polite, whether our feedback is concise and constructive or a broad its awful change it back. Even participating in feedback sessions for proposed changes does nothing (I told them we needed to be able to choose how many columns we wanted on the dashboard)

Xero has already proven, with the joke that is "new invoicing", they will plough on ahead with their agenda, customers be damned, they can always trap more with enticing sign up discounts.

It seems all of our comments are simply going to AI and it doesn't care. No human seems to be involved in this new homepage update. I still haven't got an answer back from a human when you ask for support

I'd suggest it's time for Xero to actually survey their paying customers and see if they actually want to keep this very poorly designed home page. This product ideas page does not give a clear impression of how the majority of people feel. I think it's fair to say from the comments below that most commenters hate the new home page. Is Xero listening?

Terrible new layout. Too busy and not user friendly at all. The previous version should be brought back.
No reason for it to have changed

I hate the new home page version - it is way too complicated and unnecessary!
While I'm at it I also HATE your screaming advertising on the radio - Do better please!

This is just horrible. Its difficult to look at when you expect a dashboard to give you snapshots of your business position. Its unnecessarily complex and it would be great if people can just vote with selecting the old layout as an alternative ongoing. Surely you can see the analytics of people opting for the old dashboard

JUST UGLY AND AWFUL is the only polite description I can offer. I only use a PC and I don't care about 're-sizing for all devices.'

PLEASE PUT IT BACK THE WAY IT WAS. PERMANENTLY.

The many minutes I have wasted this morning trying to 'fix' it has given me a migraine.

I think this new layout could work if there was a way to have empty card slots. That way the user could space things out and not have everything right next to each other. It's annoying how the cards reshuffle right next to each other when you remove a card

The new homepage is extremely difficult to view. There is too much white on the page, we can't see where one widget ends an another begins.
Can we please have sections with different colours - for example bank accounts are highlighted green, accounts payable/receivable are blue - just so they are in different sections and are able to be viewed easily.
Current homepage is far too busy and white.

Why don't you just change it back to how it was? Going by all the responses, it seems that no one likes the new layout or finds it helpful in any way. Maybe not try to fix something that isn't broken.

I do not like the new version at all. It's very busy, and the and not easily navigated. It looks like a hot mess. I think we should have a choice. Not easy on the eyes.

It appears a matter of time before they ruin the reconciliation screen layout, and that is going to be an absolute nightmare.

I've been working on Xero for 11 years now. When I used to 'sell' Xero to potential clients - it was inevitably the simplicity that made them convert. Most of my clients are very unhappy with the changes and some have considered unsubscribing due to not having the option to revert back to the old layout. This was very unnecessary. Really very disappointed. And I may now lose clients because of it too.